They said that the impacted workers would not be given the opportunity to reapply for the new positions until they had been advertised internally.
This kind of personnel change—having workers reapply for positions in time slots they currently produce—is unheard of at MSNBC.
When programs are canceled, MSNBC usually goes to considerable lengths to reassign employees without terminating them.
But the cable news business as a whole is going through a difficult moment. Similar to how CNN fired off 200 people last month as its new CEO,
Mark Thompson, tried to shift to a digital strategy, MSNBC, which is being spun off by NBCUniversal, is looking for cost reductions.
The possibility that the new postings would mostly be in New York, where the hourly pay rates agreed by the different unions are believed to be lower,
